North Yard Project - Official Work Thread

[Paul Crabb]

On Sunday of Work Weekend Rick Sission and I laid out the centerline of the track that will go from the yard lead, inbetween the car barn and septic hill and then through the roundhouse to the turntable. Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures but Steve H. may have taken some. Rick had created the track plan using all the measurements we took in September. He worked his magic with his computer and determined the curve intersection points, radius lines and included a 50 ft straight section inbetween the reverse curves. So now there is a row of stakes that clearly show the curving track centerline. These along with the outlines of the Car Barn, Roundhouse, turntable pit and turntable pivot point which have all been marked with paint, stakes and some traffic cones allow one to envision the future North Yard.

[Stewart "Start" Rhine]

Paul,

You and Rick (and a few others) did a nice job laying everything out and marking it.  It is good to see how the upper yard will be set up.  The traffic cones add to the scene, the other day a visitor asked if that was our driver training area.

Start

[Stephen Hussar]

[Dave Crow]

Wayne Laepple and I met up Saturday morning to work on the 33-lb rail frogs here in Baltimore.  First order was to bend the ends of the wing rails; the following photo shows one of the frogs with the rails roughly laid out on the floor:



All three sets of wing rails were bent before lunch.  After lunch and a quick break to look at Dave Wilson's (a fellow WW&F member) restoration progress of an 1880's horsecar/cable car trailer/electric streetcar in the carbarn, we headed back to work:







The green tint to the silver leaf is due to green glass in the car's clerestory windows.

Using our big radial arm drill, we made short work of making holes for clamping bolts in the frog points:



We cleaned up and headed out around 3 PM.

Dave Crow

[John Kokas]

Really nice looking work Dave & Wayne.  Is there a bottom alignment plate to attach or are you drilling and spacing the wing rails with through bolts?  Second, can your "facility" also do this on 56-60 lb rail?

[Mike Fox]

The heck with the rail, that car Dave worked on is impressive. Thanks for sharing.

[Duncan Mackiewicz]

Dave and Wayne, that is some great work and quick too. Those points will come in handy when the yard project really gets underway.

[Dave Crow]

John K,

Yes, there will be a base plate to which the various rails will be riveted; this should help support the frog since the rails are light.

I still have to make one set of 35-pound switch points for one of the switches in the "south" yard, I believe into Bay 2 or 3, as the existing points are very short.

I could probably make the parts for a 60-pound frog but it would definitely be a lot of weight mounted off-center on the 8-foot bed of the milling machine.  And bending the kinks in both the frog point and wing rails would require 3 people to support the rail and operate the hydraulic press.  And there is the time factor and wear/tear on antique machines involved; if we can afford to buy switch parts at reasonable prices, does it make sense to spend limited volunteer hours making a lot of switch parts or spend that time making patterns or brake parts or assembling No. 9 or ...?  Just my two cents.

Dave Wilson and Buster Hughes did the lion's share of the work on car 417; I installed the canvas roof and replacement roof walk back in the mid to late 80s, if I recall correctly.

Dave Crow

[James Patten]

Reviving an old thread ....

Jason, Brendan, Randy, and another volunteer were riveting the frogs for the switches into the car barn this afternoon.

Sorry for the poor quality, I was using my phone's camera.

Edit: I thought I could show pictures on my Google+, but apparently I don't know how.  So until I figure it out here's some pictures below.

[Brendan Barry]

Just to add to Jame's post the fourth volunteer was Phil and a couple more pictures.

Base plate of the frog before riveting started and frog parts on flat 126.

[Fred L. Kuhns]

 Jason, What are the next steps to finish the switches in the north yard ? Is this something that can happen before years end or will it take longer.  Fred L. Kuhns

[Jason M Lamontagne]

They need some final tweaks on alignment, guard rail installation- for this fall.  Next spring the stock rails will be fitted and points installed.  They will be passable without points this winter through the use of a makeshift stub switch arrangement.

See ya
Jason

[Terry W. Shirley]

Hello everybody! New member here.  I've been keeping track (no pun intended) of the excellent progress you guys are making up there in Maine!  But at this point I've lost track (again, no pun intended) of just how many different weights of rail are now being used on the WW&F.  Aren't you guys using 60 lb. on the Main track?

[Mike Fox]

Ok. Lets see. Someone correct me if I am wrong. 25, 30, 40, 50 and 56/60 with a couple 65 sticks accidently mixed in. How is that for variety. 

[Ira Schreiber]

I think you an add 33# also.